HP Pavilion Elite e9150t Desktop PC Reviews

We bought the HP Pavilion e9150t from Costco.com and customized it. We’ve had it a week and so far the hardware has been great! It is fast and QUIET. (We read all those reviews of the Dell with the i7 processor that were so loud you couldn’t hear your game and stayed away!) We upgraded to the 1 gig radeon video card because we like to game and added a bit more memory. Our only complaint is with Windows Vista. XP seemed like it ran things better. This deal came with a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out and I suspect we will be taking advantage of that offer.

Where to begin. I will keep this brief. I’ve had 2 e9150t’s now. And 1 e9180t (which is basically the same computer with a different model number). All 3 have had issues with crashes and freezes. Blue screen errors are a common daily occurrence. HP has admitted to these issues, and hasn’t fixed the problem. They even tried posting an update to the BIOS, which did absolutely nothing. In fact, most users have reported a decrease in performance after installing the update. HP has now discontinued these models, and it’s not hard to see why. Still no fix for all of us with defective PCs, and HP chooses to keep their customers in the dark. What a shame. I would imagine that if I asked Kevin who wrote the first review how his PC was doing now, he’d have a differnt answer for you. It sometimes takes a week or 2 in order for the chaos to begin.

I have been following the comments on this and similar hp models with i7-92o processor on an hp forum thread consisting of soon to be 200 pages.To say it’s depressing reading would be an understatement.I was all set to spend a great deal of my hard saved money on this “dream machine”,but from what I am reading it’s one product I will stay far away from.If you research your potential PC investments as I do you will no doubt run across the same forum and most likely come to the same conclusion.

This system is the same as the e9180t and e9150t models, just pre-configured. I bought an e9180t and had to exchange it three times, the last time for a refund. All three systems constantly crashed, hung, or blue screened. HP could not fix the problem, and did not provide me with any information regarding their progress on the issue.

Many other folks have run into the same problems. Just look for the 200-page thread entitled “Elite e9150t Feezes/Locks up” on HP’s user forums for all the gory details. I strongly encourage people to avoid HP, at least until they get their quality control working again.

Review by Vincent, October 20, 2009
Overall Rating
I have been following the comments on this and similar hp models with i7-92o processor on an hp forum thread consisting of soon to be 200 pages.To say it’s depressing reading would be an understatement.I was all set to spend a great deal of my hard saved money on this “dream machine”,but from what I am reading it’s one product I will stay far away from.If you research your potential PC investments as I do you will no doubt run across the same forum and most likely come to the same unfortunate conclusion.

I have had this e9150t for about 4 months. It has crashed, show me BLUE face for upteem times. When I called HP, HP case manager is not even willing to speak with me regarding the matter and tries to avoid talking to me when I ask the operator for the manager. Only after much haggling and pleading can I get a case number to send my PC in for repair. After all these have been sorted out, I do not think I would purchase any HP related products. They should change their logo to “The Computer is BOSDed Again!”

I am unfortunately the owner of an HP e9150t. The system has proven itself to be very unstable, with daily hangs and BSODs the normal experience. What a shame–HP used to be a highly regarded company. Apparently, quality control has become a foreign concept to them.

My e9150t has been HORRIBLE. It was broken from the second I received it and I have been computer tech savvy for ten years. It just reboots non stop, can’t do anything with it. HP Tech support wont help either. I I could choose -10 stars I would…

Fotrunately, I have not had the BSOD issues with this PC, however, I will share some interesting factoids with you. First, the GTS 250 video card runs pretty hot if you do any gaming - gets up to about 70 degrees Celsius after about 30 minutes. That’s too hot for sustained gaming and will shorten the life of your card. Second and most important, as that the i7-920 CPU does NOT run at the advertised 2.67 GHZ! I have used two separate benchmarking tools, and both say that that actual clock speed is down around 1.6GHZ!!! Not sure what they did or why they did it, but I don’t get the power I paid for, not by a long shot. Lastly, I had some driver conflicts early on, but the tech support folks were GREAT and walked me through the fixes, no prob.

It’s not all bad. It has never crashed, the CD/DVD drives work perfectly, the cvard readers and usb ports all work fine, and the 750 GB hard drive is super quiet.

Would I get it again, or would I spend an additional $300 to get a comparably equipped Dell? I’d probably get the Dell.